Matthew 10:34: Not Peace but a Sword?

This is a hard saying for all who recall the message of the angels on the night of Jesus' birth: "Glory to God in high heaven, and peace on earth among human beings, the objects of God's favor" (as the message seems to mean). True, the angels' message appears only in Luke (Lk 2:14) and the hard saying comes from Matthew. But Luke records the same hard saying, except that he replaces the metaphorical "sword" by the nonmetaphorical "division" (Lk 12:51). Both Evangelists then go on to report Jesus as saying, "For I have come to turn `a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law' " (Mt 10:35; Lk 12:53), while Matthew rounds the saying off with a quotation from the Old Testament: "a man's enemies will be the members of his own household" (Mic 7:6).

One thing is certain: Jesus did not advocate conflict. He taught his followers to offer no resistance or retaliation when they were attacked or ill-treated. "Blessed are the peacemakers," he said, "for they will be called sons of God" (Mt 5:9), meaning that God is the God of peace, so that those who seek peace and pursue it reflect his character. When he paid his last visit to Jerusalem, the message which he brought it concerned "what would bring you peace," and he wept because the city refused his message and was bent on a course that was bound to lead to destruction (Lk 19:41-44). The message that his followers proclaimed in his name after his departure was called the "gospel of peace" (Eph 6:15) or the "message of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5:19 RSV). It was called this not merely as a matter of doctrine but as a fact of experience. Individuals and groups formerly estranged from one another found themselves reconciled through their common devotion to Christ. Something of this sort must have been experienced even earlier, in the course of the Galilean ministry: if Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector were able to live together as two of the twelve apostles, the rest of the company must have looked on this as a miracle of grace.

But when Jesus spoke of tension and conflict within a family, he probably spoke from personal experience. There are indications in the gospel story that some members of his own family had no sympathy with his ministry; the people who on one occasion tried to restrain him by force because people were saying, "He is out of his mind" are called "his friends" in the KJV but more accurately "his family" in the NIV (Mk 3:21). "Even his own brothers did not believe in him," we are told in John 7:5. (If it is asked why, in that case, they attained positions of leadership alongside the apostles in the early church, the answer is no doubt to be found in the statement of 1 Cor 15:7 that Jesus, risen from the dead, appeared to his brother James.)

So, when Jesus said that he had come to bring "not peace but a sword" he meant that this would be the effect of his coming, not that it was the purpose of his coming. His words came true in the life of the early church, and they have verified themselves subsequently in the history of Christian missions. Where one or two members of a family or other social group have accepted the Christian faith, this has repeatedly provoked opposition from other members. Paul, who seems to have experienced such opposition in his own family circle as a result of his conversion, makes provision for similar situations in the family life of his converts. He knew that tension could arise when a husband or a wife became a Christian and the other spouse remained a pagan. If the pagan spouse was happy to go on living with the Christian, that was fine; the whole family might become Christian before long. But if the pagan partner insisted on walking out and terminating the marriage, the Christian should not use force or legal action, because "God has called us to peace" (1 Cor 7:12-16 RSV).

In these words, then, Jesus was warning his followers that their allegiance to him might cause conflict at home and even expulsion from the family circle. It was well that they should be forewarned, for then they could not say, "We never expected that we should have to pay this price for following him!"